


sometimes you meet the best people digging through garbage at 2 am

by Bonnie_Bug



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:52:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8131112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonnie_Bug/pseuds/Bonnie_Bug
Summary: A late-night encounter involving trash cans, strange creatures, and a bright blue box.   (a fic exchange between me and my friend)





	

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted october 9, 2012 on tumblr
> 
> this was for my friend silas in a sort of fic exchange between us! they wrote me meeting some of their ocs and so of course I responded with fanfic. mostly because at the time I didn't have any ocs but whatever :u

You’re sitting alone in your room, reading, with the lights off and the window cracked. The cool night air is whispering through, chilling the air enough to warrant pulling a blanket over your legs, but not enough to shut the window entirely. The only light in the room is what little the moon is spilling through your window, and the soft, golden glow of the lamp beside you. You shift in your chair, trying to find a more comfortable position, before settling back down and rustling the pages of your book. It’s late, very late, but you don’t mind at all as you lose yourself in the story, chapter after chapter blurring through your mind.  
  
Suddenly, a strange noise makes its way to your ears from the outside world. Curiosity piqued, you set your book aside and stand up, weaving your way to the window. Brushing aside the curtains, you peer through the window into the night. Street lights, stars, a big blue box, houses, yards… nothing unusual. You turn away and make it halfway across your room before you realize that _no_ , something’s off. Something big, and huge. Something important.

You open the curtains once more, pushing open the window and poking your head out to see better. Good thing the screen broke last week, or this would’ve been a lot harder… You squint out into the darkness, raking your eyes over every inch of the land before you. Your next door neighbor’s car, broken down as usual; your trash cans, toppled over on one another, but that’s nothing new. The yellowy street light flickering, they really ought to fix that soon; the bright blue box standing on the street corner, right where it should be–  
  
Ah.  
  
Cocking your head, you lean forward some more and study the box. It was tall, with a glowing light on top and a lit sign saying Police… something… Box. There were small, bright windows on the sides, and a white rectangle, possibly some sort of a sign, below one of them. Raising an eyebrow, you rest your elbows on the sill and stare at it some more. What in the world was a blue shack doing sitting on the corner? Moreover, how did it _get_ there? It certainly wasn’t there earlier in the afternoon, and you’re pretty sure it hadn’t been there when you had come in to read. There were no signs of moving equipment around, and that thing looked pretty heavy; someone had to have erected it somehow, within the two or so hours you’d been reading, and then leave without a trace. But who?  
  
As you sit there, contemplating, a door opens in the box, golden light spilling out onto the wet pavement. A tall, skinny guy steps out, wearing a suit and a huge, brown jacket that threatens to scrape the ground. He quickly shuts the door behind him, glancing around. He reaches a hand into his pocket, pulling it back out and flashing something blue around, before walking off toward your house.  
  
You pull your head back inside, but stay close to the window, watching him as he draws closer. In the half-light, you can see he either has dark brown or black scruffy hair, likely gelled, and pale skin that almost glows in the moonlight. He walks with purpose, coming to a stop at the end of your driveway, beside your trash cans. Stooping down, he proceeds to root around in one of them, muttering under his breath.  
  
You step back into your room, away from the window, confused. What in the world was he doing, digging around in your family’s trash? Was he looking for something? Was he homeless? Should you go down and ask if he needs help, or would he end up being a serial killer and just murder you?  
  
Biting your lip, you sneak back to the window and kneel down, poking your head just beyond the side of the frame and looking out. He’s still over there, having moved on to the second can, flashing that blue light again. You’re close enough now to hear the strange whirring the device makes, almost drowned out by his continued muttering. It doesn't  _look_ like he has any weapons on him, and he doesn’t really seem the serial murderer type… and there’s just something about him that piques your curiosity, to the point that, almost against your will, you’re moving away from the window and out your bedroom door, pulling on your sneakers and exiting your house, walking back around to driveway. He’s _still_ there, now down on his hands and knees with his head and torso shoved into a can, legs and feet poking out the back.  
  
You stand there awkwardly, pulling at your sweatshirt’s sleeves, before you decide to alert him to your presence and clear your throat, then do it again, because you’d made a weird, strangled sound reminiscent of a dying albatros.  
  
He jerks in surprise, banging his head on the side of the can and crawling back out, rubbing his head and sending his hair into further disarray. Running his hand one last time over his scalp, he looks up and makes eye contact with you.  
  
“Oh. Hello there!” he grins, giving a little wave. He’s British; very British. You can’t quite place his accent, except that it sounds almost a bit Scottish.  
  
“Who’re you?” you ask, voice soft. You’re almost painfully shy in the best of circumstances, and having a Brit randomly rummaging around in your rubbage is basically the opposite.  
  
“Me? I’m the Doctor,” he answers, and you can hear the capital in his voice.  
  
“Doctor who?” you ask, and he smiles.  
  
“Just the Doctor.”  
  
“That’s it?” you say, raising an eyebrow quizzically. “You don’t have a name beyond that?”  
  
“Nope,” he rises up, dusting off his pants. “Well, yeah, I do, technically, but no one’s called me that in, ooh…” he scratches behind his ear and thinks. “…Easily eight, maybe nine…”  
  
“… Years?” you supply when he trails off once more.  
  
“Centuries,” he responds, looking back down at you. You squint up at him, eyebrows furrowed. Okay… he’s British and crazy. That’s new. Or is he just lying to throw you off?  
  
“What are you doing in my trash cans?” you ask instead, shoving your hands into your sweatshirt pockets.  
  
“Oh, that?” he glances back down at the cans, shoving his own hands inside his pants pockets. “There’s a little critter I’ve been following, and I tracked it into here,” he punctuates his remark with a kick of his cream-colored Converse against the side of one can. “Thing is, it seems to have vanished, and I can’t find its trail again…” He stares down at the cans, brows drawn in thought.  
  
“… Well, what does he look like?” you quietly ask. “Maybe I’ve seen it.” He shakes his head, waving a hand in your general direction.  
  
“Noo, you wouldn’t be able to–” he pauses, glancing back at you. Placed under his scrutiny, you shuffle awkwardly a bit as he stares at you, eyes so deep they look black in the moonlight.  
  
“Hmm… maybe you _can_ see it…”  
  
Suddenly moving, he whips out a silvery tube with a blue orb on the end. He flicks it on, revealing it to be the blue light from before, and points it at you, shining it from your feet up, lingering at your head. He almost seems to be _scanning_ you, but for what, you have no clue. He finishes, the light flicking off, and brings his eyes to the device. He mutters to himself for a moment, something about very low, basic psychic abilities before pausing, then flicking his gaze up to you.  
  
“You wouldn’t happen to be an artist of some kind, would you? Pictures, stories, songs, anything like that…?” You nod hesitantly.  
  
“I really like to draw and write…” you say. “Does that mean anything?” He grins and claps, ignoring your question.  
  
“Brilliant! You might be able to help me after all. Now, the creature I’m looking for, it’s about as big as, oh, a cantaloupe, maybe, a small cantaloupe,” he gestures with his hands, “And fuzzy. Big, fluffy blue fur about the same shade as my box over there,” he points over your shoulder, and you turn your head to look at the shack he’d come out of. “S’got no eyes, not that _you_ can see, anyway, and it kinda… flops and hops around everywhere,” he goes on. You nod, a little confused, but forming a mental image in your head anyway.  
  
“Is it a pet or something of yours?” you ask, and he shakes his head.  
  
“No, not really, no. I’m more like… animal control than anything right now,” he says, turning away and peering into your neighbor’s bushes.  
  
“Is it dangerous, then?” you ask hesitantly. He waves a hand again dismissively.  
  
“Noo, no, not at all, it’s completely harmless. Well, mostly harmless,” he amends, ducking his head to the side. “ _Well_ , sort of harmless until it finds an energy source with the right amount of bacteria inside it, which is why I was looking through your rubbage bins,” he points to your trash cans. “You humans just _love_ to throw everything away, don’t you? Just let it sit and fester outside in the damp night air, letting it mold and congeal. These guys just _love_ that sort of thing, they feast on it; the more decayed it is, the stronger they grow…” he finally trails off. Suddenly, he looks up, locking eyes with you..  
  
“This creature,” he says, “It likes biting things. A _lot_. Don’t, under _any_ circumstances, let it bite you,” he says seriously. “Don’t even get _close_ enough for it to bite you, to be on the safe side. This specific one is very small and weak, but it can still pack a punch. _Don’t_ let it bite you. Got it?” he asks. You nod, eyes wide and a little scared.  
  
“What’ll happen if it _does_ bite me?” you ask, fiddling with your fingers. He hems and haws for a bit, as if he’s deciding how much to tell you.  
  
“Like I mentioned before, this type of creature feeds on bacteria,” he says at last, gesturing animatedly with his hands. “Any and all sorts of bacteria and germs and viruses. It was _initially_ bred to be used as a type of purifier, to rid surfaces of harmful bacteria, only… it backfired. Horribly. The creatures went rogue and started devouring _all_ the bacteria, even the necessary, good types of bacteria. They stripped a whole… a whole hospital bare, killing everything and every _one_ inside. They were eventually trapped and taken away to a safehouse, impenetrable and inescapable… Or so I thought…” He mutters to himself, moving back to the bushes.  
  
“Anyway,” he goes on, “These little devils just _love_ bacteria, and Earth is teeming with the stuff. People everywhere, squashed in like sardines in a can, filled to the brim with lots of tasty germs and pathogens. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet for these guys,” he pokes his head into the bushes. “One bite,” he continues, almost distractedly, “Just _ooone_ little bite, could send a million germs and bacteria and sicknesses into your body, over-flooding your immune system. You’d be down for the count before you could call nine-nine-nine…”  
  
You nod, scratching the back of your neck. You go over his words in your mind, and suddenly, something he’d said earlier jumped out at you. You furrow your brows.  
  
“What did you mean, ‘you humans’?” you pipe up, forming air quotes with your fingers. “You’re human too… right?” There is a distinct lack of an answer on his part as he continues to poke around in the shrubbery. You run a hand through your hair, scattering the strands, and tentatively walk over to him.  
  
“… You’re… you’re _not_ a human… are you?” you ask quietly, crouching down by his side. He stills for a moment, then continues his work.  
  
“No,” he replies, voice soft.  
  
“And that… creature thing that you’re looking for… It’s not from Earth either, is it?” He shakes his head, turning to face your general direction.  
  
“No, it’s not. It’s from a planet about, oh… Twenty-seven light-years in… _that_ direction,” he points vaguely to a spot over your right shoulder. “ _Somehow_ , one of the little buggers stowed away on a ship heading in this direction, where it was discovered. It managed to escape, which is where I come in,” he says. “I managed to trace its energy signature to… where are we, again?” he asks suddenly, squinting up at you.  
  
"Pawnee," you say, and then, not sure how much he knows about Earth, add on, “Indiana. Um. United States, North America.”  
  
“Right, right…” he nods, then continues, prodding the bushes once more. “Anyway, I traced it to this area, but now the signature’s too weak to figure out _where_ exactly it’s coming from…” he ran a hand through his hair once more.  
  
“Well… maybe I can help you,” you say, forming it more as a question than anything. “Y’know what they say; two heads are better than one, and all that… Maybe if we look together, we’ll find it quicker.” He pauses, looking you over once more.  
  
“What’s your name, again?” he asks, still staring at you.  
  
“Silas. Silas Karringer,” you reply, nervously tugging on the sleeve of your sweatshirt once more. He looks at you a moment more and then grins.   
  
“I like you, Silas. You’re clever.” You smile back as he calls, “Come on!” and strides away, leaving you hurrying to catch up.  
  


* * *

  


Forty-five minutes later, you still haven’t seen hide nor hair of the strange little creature you’re searching for. You’ve learned several facts about the man searching with you, however; namely, the guy just _couldn’t shut up_. He chats on and on about nothing in particular, using lots of words you’ve never heard of before, and are pretty sure aren't even English, but you don’t really mind. His company is nice as the night grows colder, and you find yourself intrigued by his tales.  
  
You learn that yes, he really _is_ an alien, and that no, _he_ doesn’t look human,  _you_ look like _his_ species, something called a Time Lord. You also learn that he’s the last of said species, that the blue shack on the corner is called a Police Box, and that it’s not actually a real Police Box at all. You learn that your sun is part of a constellation _he_ named called Bonam Fortunam, and that it's Latin for “Good Fortune.” You also learn that the sun is called Clarissimas by most of the galaxy, and that it is _also_ Latin, meaning “Bright,” or “Brightest.”  
  
You ask about his odd liking for the Dead Language, and he explains that many Latin phrases were derived from his people’s language, and that the grammatical structure and whatnot were very similar. He explains that, where he was from, Bonam Fortunam meant “Where happiness and prosperity are found,” and that Clarissimas meant “Those who are bright and full of potential.” You also learn that he loves bananas but hates pears with a passion, that he technically invented the wheel, and that he thinks that the silvery decorative balls on cakes, or as he calls them, “the little edible ball bearings,” are the greatest things since sliced bread (which, incidentally, was his invention as well).  
  
He also encourages you to talk, so you tell him anything interesting about yourself that you can think of. When you mention you are working on a story that involves planets and mermaids and magic, he looks at you funny from the corner of his eye. When you question him about it, he just shrugs and cryptically replies that you should “keep working on it,” and that you “never know where it might lead to.”  
  
Finally, almost an hour after you first started looking, he gives a shout and runs over to a pile of black trash bags sitting by the side of the road. You hurry after him, your smaller strides no match for his long legs, and arrive at his side just as he’s uncovered the creature.  
  
It’s exactly as he described, all fluff and blue fur, slightly matted and sticky-looking, presumably from rooting around in garbage bags all night. It makes a strange little hissing noise as he lifts it up the bag it had been hiding under, sounding something like a disgruntled cat.  
  
“Yes, I _know_ you were eating that, that’s why I moved it,” he says matter-of-factly.

The creature hisses again.  
  
“No, I’m not going to give it back. I’m here to take you back to Carcerium, where you belong.” More hissing, and he sighs exasperatedly.  
  
“No, I’m not going to ‘look the other way,’ nor make a deal with you. You can’t live on this planet, you’ll destroy it.” You realize with a jolt that this man is _talking to the creature_ , like he understands what it’s saying. _Well_ , you think to yourself, _He is an alien.._ _._ The fluffball hisses some more, and the man shakes his head.  
  
“Yes you will. I know your type; I helped _build_ that prison of yours. I designed it myself. I know _exactly_ what you’re capable of.”  
  
…  
  
“Now, we both know that’s a lie to try and lure me away.”  
  
…  
  
“Oh, sure, you can try that. It’s not going to work, though.”  
  
…  
  
“Why?” He stoops down low, crouching on his haunches. “ _Because I’m here_. And don’t even _think_ about trying to gather your fellows and enslave these people like a bunch of cattle, because I _will_ stop you.” He rose, staring sternly down at the little alien. “Now, you tell me where your brothers are, and I’ll take you back to Carcerium without a fuss. Got it?” The little alien seems to grumble a bit, before quietly hissing what you assume is a ‘yes.’ The man nods and reaches down, grabbing a fistful of the blue fur. Eyes wide, you open your mouth and are just about to speak when he interrupts you, seeming to know your comment before it even leaves your mouth.  
  
“I’ve got a brilliant immune system, so I can handle anything this bugger throws at me,” he says. “That, and he’s agreed not to bite me until I return him to Carcerium, though after that he says I’m fair game…” he squints at the ball of fur in his hand. Then, with a grin and a wink, he looks your way.  
  
“Come on, Silas! We’ve got a dozen Sargeelien to find.”

 

* * *

 

“I thought you said there was only one Sargy-len thing,” you huff at him quite some time later, hurrying to keep up with his rapid pace as you weave through the winding streets of the trailer park. “Not twelve!”

  
“That’s because I’d only _detected_ one Sargeelien,” he replies, not even out of breath as he skids to a halt near a chain-link fence that separates the park from the middle school. “The others are extremely frail, significantly weaker than the first we found,” he adds, poking around in the weeds growing there with the flashy blue thing, a device he’d described as some sort of screwdriver. “The little buggers wouldn’t even register on my scanners.”  
  
“Then how can you tell where they are now?” you ask, confused and a little worried that you’d been racing around the park for no real reason. He twiddles the screwdriver in your direction as an answer.  
  
“Got their signature locked in here,” he says. “Since I know what it is now, I can trace it. Should be able to find the rest in no time. Ten minutes, tops,” he gives you a winning grin. You smile brightly back in return, his enthusiasm catching.  
  
However, after what is most decidedly _not_ ten minutes later, you are highly doubting you can ever be enthusiastic about searching for lost animals ever again. Your feet are aching, and you’ve had a stitch in your side for the last fifteen minutes straight. Your searching companion, on the other hand, is aggravatingly cheery, and still just as eager, if not more so, than when you’d first started looking, the running and chasing not seeming to affect him in the slightest.  
  
Finally, easily two hours later, you catch the last Sargeelien, who had been hidden away in a slide of the nearby elementary school’s playground. The man had been stuffing them, one by one, into a bag he had mysteriously pulled from his jacket pocket; he’d said, with an impressive grin, that it was a fantastically high-end Sargeelien containment unit, made from a material that was completely, absolutely, one hundred percent bacteria free; if you’re being honest, however, it looks a rather lot like a regular old burlap sack, painted white and knotted around its neck with a fraying piece of twine.  
  
Walking back home, you realize just how thoroughly _exhausted_ you are; your hands are numb from the chilled air, your feet are on fire, and you ache in places you didn’t know you had. Still, the hungry little aliens were finally rounded up and tucked away, the Earth was saved, and you’d met a British alien. All in all, it really wasn’t that bad of a night. You share this sentiment with the man walking beside you; he gives a bright grin and nods an affirmative, a hand shoved into his pants pocket as he swaggers along, the bag full of aliens slung over his shoulder.  
  
Both your home and the man’s mysterious police box came into view then, and you slow to a halt in the middle space between them, glancing back and forth as the man continues his journey to his little shack. You can practically hear your bed calling to you from your house, all soft pillows and warm blankets, promising sweet dreams and peaceful relaxation. You take a shuffling step towards it, gravel crunching under your feet, when, before you’ve even really begun to move, you halt and slowly move your head around to the right.  
  
You can’t explain it, but… there’s just something about him, this man and his blue box, that intrigues you, pulls you in. You hardly ever open up to anybody, much less complete strangers claiming to be from outer space, but there’s just something about him that puts you at ease; something that makes you feel safe in his presence, despite pure logic telling you otherwise. He’s magnetic, pulling you out of your shell to say hello so easily, it’s almost frightening.  
  
And then, there’s the whole “I’m an alien from outer space, last of my kind, and I travel around in a blue police box from the Sixties, saving the Universe from danger” thing; you have an artist’s soul, and your heart can’t resist a storyline like that. If anything, it’s his mystique that initially pulled you in more than anything. There’s just something about him that’s almost… _off_ … and you’re itching to know what it is.  
  
You realize with a start that, not only have you been standing there, motionless, for a solid minute or two, but that he’s been standing at the door and watching you back. You shuffle awkwardly, dropping your gaze and rubbing a foot against your calf. You’re just about to speak, making up some sort of excuse that you have to go inside, when his voice stops you.  
  
“Do you want to come inside?”  
  
Your eyes snap up to meet his, questioning.  
  
“What do you mean?” you ask, shoving your hands deep into your pockets. “It’s just a telephone box…” A slow grin spreads across his face.  
  
“Oh, Silas… It’s that, and so much more.” You cock your head, taking a slow step toward him, then another.  
  
“What do you mean?” you reiterate, letting your eyes wander around the box’s sturdy, strong form. “No offense, but… It’s not really impressive. What’s so special about a police box?” His grin only grows stronger as he pushes open the door, letting warm, orangey gold light spill onto the pavement.  
  
“You’ll just have to see for yourself, won’t you?” He steps aside, giving you plenty of room as you draw nearer. You squint up at him for a moment, a little suspicious, before you sucumb to your intense curiosity and step inside.  
  
As soon as you cross the threshold, your breath leaves your lungs and you forget how to get them working again. The room before you… it’s  _impossible_. There’s no way it could fit inside that tiny little box you’d walked into! You trip back, looking up and staring at the blue wood of the box. Reaching out and grabbing onto its painted wooden surface, you use it to brace yourself as you stumble around the perimeter of the box, your brain having trouble accepting what’s been placed before you. You run your hands along the surface, catching your fingers on the indentations and rough edges, feeling their solidness, their realness.  
  
You reach the doorway once again, the small portion of your brain that’s not currently screaming out _wrong! can’t be! impossible!_ realizing that the man is softly smirking at your actions, but you don’t really care. You falter inside again, eyes wide as you slowly take it all in.  
  
The room is _huge_ , big and round and golden-brown, all metal grating and flashing lights. There are brown, coral-like, organic-looking supports stretching toward the impossibly high ceiling, and cables are strewn about like electrical spaghetti. Hexagon-shaped doorways seem to branch off into grey, utilitarian-style corridors, and everything seems to shine with a soft, inner, golden light.  
  
In the center of the room stands a hub of some sort, with a tall column in the center that disappears into the ceiling, pulsing with a turquoise glow. You stumble toward this, tripping up the grated stairs, coming to a halt at its side. You brush your fingers over the multitude of buttons and switches and levers and dials and keyboards and who knows what else there, feeling entirely out of your element. It feels like you’re trying to put together sixty-nine and four o’clock, only to come up with the fourteenth of Chartreuse as an answer. Nothing about it makes sense, this impossibility; it makes your eyes itch and your senses burn and your brain hurt, but if you’re being honest… you’re almost enjoying it.  
  
You lift your head to stare up at the central column, raising a hand to stroke its glass surface. Suddenly, something akin to a greeting brushes across your mind, whisper-light and delicate as the wind. It’s not so much words and thoughts as it is emotions and images; you feel a warmth inside you, like coming home from a long day and seeing your mother waiting for you at the door, or seeing your sister laugh at something you said, or feeling a friend's arms wrap around you in a surprise hug. You jerk your hand back, trying not to feel the flicker of mild dissatisfaction in the back of your head at the loss of contact. You turn your head toward the doors, seeing that the man had entered and was leaning casually against the wall.  
  
“What is this place?” you ask, unable to bring your voice above a whisper.  
  
“This is the TARDIS,” he answers. “Stands for ‘Time And Relative Dimension In Space.’ Or ‘Dimensions,’ if you prefer, it goes either way.”  
  
“TARDIS…” you breathe, testing how it felt, rolling around your mouth. The name fit, somehow, perfectly and without question. Shaking your head, you step away from the hub, gesturing to the room around you.  
  
“How is this place… How is it _possible?_ It’s bigger…” you trail off, letting your hands fall. The man smiles.  
  
“S’bigger on the inside,” he grins. “Always love it when they say that.” Shoving himself away from the wall, he continues, gesturing animatedly. “Simply put, we’re in a sort of… nether-space, as it were. The whole ship, the console room, the corridors, the rooms, exists in a trans-dimensional plane of existence.” He takes note of your blank look, and tries to explain. “It’s, it’s like… It’s like having two boxes,” he says at last, looking at you intently. “One’s bigger, and the other’s smaller. You place them side to side, and what do you see?”  
  
“A big box and a little box…” you say slowly, unsure of where he was going with this. He nods.  
  
“You see two different sized boxes, right. Now, if you held the little box up near your eye,” he demonstrates with his hands, “And held the big one at an arm’s length, what would you see?”  
  
“Two boxes… about the same size.” He nods again, smiling.  
  
“Exactly! Now, imagine if you could stick that big box inside the small box when it was all perspectivey and foreshortened. That’s basically what the TARDIS is,” he says.  
  
“It’s a… a big box inside a little box?” you ask. He bobs his head.  
  
“Yup,” he pops his ‘p’. “Little big blue box. Sums her right up,” he pats a support structure lovingly.  
  
“Her?” you ask, confused. He nods.  
  
“Yes, her. This isn’t only a big ol’ spaceship shoved into a police box, y’know; it’s more special than just that. She’s alive,” he grinned.  
  
“Alive? Can it… can she talk?” you ask, remembering the feelings in the back of your head. He ducked his head from side to side.  
  
“Weellll, yes and no. She’s telepathic, she is, she can get inside your head and such, but she can’t talk with a physical form like you or me; it’s more like in pictures and impressions, really, relying on memories and the like to get her point across to you. Why, did she contact you?” he suddenly asks, looking you up and down, brow slightly furrowed. You nod shyly, playing with your fingers.  
  
“Is that a bad thing?” you ask as he bounds over to you.  
  
“No, no no no, not at all,” he says, coming to a stop in front of you. “Unusual, sure, but not bad. Very unusual, even. _Extremely_ unusual. In fact, I can’t remember a time she talked to a human first thing before…” he stretched out a hand and stroked the column. “She must really like you,” he sent a glance your way, a slight grin on his face.  
  
“Well, I, uh,… I like her too,” you say a bit uncertainly, gazing around the vast room. “She’s uh… bright. And, um…. big. Too big. Impossible, really,” you give a small, embarrassed smile and hunch your shoulders up, but the man just laughs.  
  
“Ohh, not impossible, no. Just highly unlikely,” he winks. Suddenly moving, he dashes around the hub, pressing buttons and kicking levers as he spins here and there. “So!” he says, punctuating his remark with a flick of a switch, “A free trip for one Mx Silas Karringer. Where would you like to go first?”  
  
“What do you mean?” you ask, trying in vain to follow after him as he dances about.  
  
“Well, I said it’s a spaceship, didn’t I?” he replies. You nod. “Well, there you go! Anywhere in time and space, wherever and whenever you’d like!”  
  
“Time?” you ask, eyes widening. “It’s a time machine, too??”  
  
“Well, of course!” he laughs. “You didn’t think the Time in ‘Time and Relative Dimension’ was just for kicks, did ya?” he smiles. “So, I ask you once again!” he bounds over to you, coming to a stop and dropping his voice, ducking down to your eye level with a grin. “Where do you want to go?”  
  
You bite your lip, a grin spreading across your own face involuntarily in response to his. All of time and space… where could you begin?? You could go to see ancient Rome, or the Middle Ages, or see the Great Wall of China when it was bright and new… You could go see Germany or England, and walk down the streets and see the sights you’ve dreamed about. You could go visit Paris in a hundred years from now, or see New York City in two-hundred. You could go to Mars, or Jupiter, or go see what the Sun looks like from another solar system. Anywhere and any _when_ , all for you to decide.  
  
“I’d like… I’d like to go to Japan,” you say at last, smiling. He gives a grin and hops up, dashing to the hub once again.  
  
“Century?” he asks, and you hesitate.  
  
“Uhm… Thirty-third!” you smile and shrug.  
  
“Oh, s’not going to be on Earth, then,” he says even as he’s twiddling switches and levers. “Solar flares burned the earth to a crisp in the twenty-ninth century, the planet’s completely inhospitable. _However_ ,” he says before you can get a word in edgewise, “Everyone’s managed to flee to the stars to ride it out, on spaceships large enough for whole countries to live in. You should see the Starship Tokyo,” he grins at you suddenly. “It is _truly_ a sight to behold, all flashing lights and hoverchairs and trans-mat stations. Even in the year three-thousand, they’re still the most technologically advanced country on Earth. Or, well, _above_ Earth, in this case…” he amends in a mutter, staring intently at some sort of screen.  
  
“Country?” you ask, confused. Tokyo was a city, the last time you checked. He nods, however.  
  
“Yup, country. Tokyo seceded in 2058, becoming their own legal country, complete with governmental system, taxes, the whole shebang, in the eyes of the world by mid-2062,” he says. “They remained on good terms with Japan Proper up through 2235, where they had a falling out that eventually caused World War IV. Long story, lots of hearsay and political nonsense, very boring,” he waves a hand dismissively. “They’re allies now, though, even have their starships parked in the same geosynchronous orbit as each other,” he continues. You blink, a little dazed by the informational overload as he moves to a crank of some sort, pausing with his hand on the lever.  
  
“Starship Tokyo, year 3000. Ready?” he asks, and you grin and nod.  
  
“Ready!” you smile.  
  
“Hold on tight to something!” he says, and you glance around, grabbing onto a black bar wrapped in yellowy foam near the hub. He tenses, one fist tight on the lever. “You’re gonna like this part,” he grins, and with a whoop, throws the switch.  
  
If your bed was calling to you still, you can’t hear a thing as the engines start, grinding of out the sound of the universe, of time, and of space itself. A brilliant smile flashes over your face as you laugh in pure ecstasy, thrown this way and that as the ship rocks back and forth, hardly able to stay on your feet in all the turbulence. One small thought manages to squeeze its way past your delight and wonder, and you already have your next destination in mind, even as you’re hurtling towards a time a thousand years into your future.  
  
  
You can’t wait to see Bonnie’s reaction when you materialized out of nowhere on her front lawn tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah we don't actually live in pawnee obvs I just didn't want to come up with a fake name :v


End file.
